What Goes Around

I stayed overnight in the waiting area, exhausted but unable to sleep. I kept thinking that Jed and Billy could burst through the entrance at any time, and I hoped that they were already in custody. Beth's sister arrived and sat with me as I tried to explain what happened. Finally at dusk, she was greeted by a middle-aged doctor who shared the diagnosis - two fractured ribs, a collapsed lung, a concussion and a broken femur. I asked if the police were called, and the doctor said that it wasn't policy for the hospital to report car accidents. Car accidents? How could they believe that the injuries were the result of a car accident? Then it hit me - The cowards finally succeeded in running her down.

Beth was released four days later. Her sister was unable to pick her up so she asked me and I gladly agreed. They wheeled her to my car with her crutches laying across her lap. She nervously scanned the parking lot before seeing me in front of her, forcing a smile. I helped her to stand and was able to get her into the passenger seat. We pulled out of the lot and headed toward home.

"So, what's new," I asked, trying to break the ice but not sure if it would make her laugh or cry.

"Oh, not much. Same ole same ole," she said dryly, before we both broke into laughter. I reached for her bruised left hand, and I loved the warmth of it as she accepted it.

We drove in silence, passing the turnoff for the lake's parking lot. I focused on the road and was determined not to peek over at the spot where I found her for fear of bringing a flood of memories back to her.

She finally spoke. "They told me you probly saved my life, getting' me to the hospital when you did. I mean, how did you find me anyway?"

I smiled and squeezed her hand. I felt a connection with her that I never imagined could happen. I didn't want to admit it but the 'L' word floated on my lips.

"I don't know how, Beth. I just knew."

"I don't know how to thank you, really."

"Maybe a Piggly Wiggly gift card or something?" I kidded.

"Don't make me laugh," she said. "It hurts too much when I do."

"Sorry Beth."

We finally approached her sister's run-down single-story cottage, and I felt the muscles in her hand tense up. She slunk down in the seat and peered from side to side.

She sniffled and said quietly, "It's...it's just a matter of time before they get me for good. I mean, I can't hide forever."

I felt the adrenaline building again and paused, contemplating what to say. I pulled up to the tiny house, put the car in 'park' and gazed out of the windshield.

"True, you can't," I said, "but neither could they."

Naturally there were all kinds of rumors throughout the county about the fates of Jed and Billy. Some insisted that they ran off to escape from the law while others chalked up their disappearance to a drug deal gone wrong, but there was universal relief that they were just plain "gone." Because there was no one who cared enough to report them missing, nor was there anyone who really wanted them to be found, there was never any formal investigation as to their whereabouts. The rumors died down and eventually just stopped. Just like the age-old question about the tree falling in the woods, over time the question in Appalachia became - if no one cared that you were missing, were you ever really there to begin with?

EPILOGUE - 23 YEARS LATER

When I look back at that period of my life, I wonder how the three of us were able to ever sleep at night with the drama, the fear, the pain, the sexual tension, and the underlying guilt with which we juggled on a daily basis. Beth and I remained closeted and intimate lovers after she recovered from her injuries. Although we never had the nerve to express our love to each other verbally, it was always implied. We eventually were forced to reluctantly end our love affair when we both found our male 'soul mates' within months of each other. We took strangely parallel paths, with both of us ultimately marrying, moving out of town hundreds of miles from each other, and eventually divorcing, only to return to the town where we grew up as if we were again magnetically pulled back to Appalachia, fighting against our will.

As for Lucy Rae, she and I became the closest of friends, and although we did have a couple more sexual 'no strings' hookups together, for very good reasons we focused more on building our relationship as friends, and we ultimately abandoned the 'benefits' portion of our arrangement. I convinced Lucy to share her collection of "hillbilly" charcoal drawings with others, beginning with the weekly craft show just down from the Piggly Wiggly, and it wasn't long before her talent was discovered by a female art professor who - coincidentally - was passing through the area on her way to interview for the newly vacated position at the Cryden Art Institute.

Within a few years, through her new mentor's encouragement and prodding, Lucy became something of a National treasure - a 'diamond in the rough' who - with the aid of social media and through the establishment of an internet art auction site, was finally able to easily support her family by selling her works on-line. At any given time, she had dozens of charcoals and watercolors on the site and available to the highest bidder. Every piece sold within days, and almost always at well above their minimum asking prices.

That is - every piece but one, curiously entitled 'Comes Around,' which was unlike all of her other charcoal sketches in that it was rather uninteresting and without detail. In it is a rudimentary sketch of a body of water, with only a few weeds around the edges, and without any birds flying overhead or wildlife sipping water from the edge of the shore. Due to its simplicity one would even question if it was drawn by the same artist who crafted the other amazingly intricate and interesting sketches, but - sure enough - Lucy's telltale signature was found at the bottom right of the picture - 'Lucy R - '93.' Just to the left of the signature, barely visible to the naked eye, is a very faint set of tire tracks leading to the water's edge. "Comes Around" still sits alone on the website with no bidders, nearly ten years after it was initially posted for sale on the site.

As I rolled onto my side in the comfy bed this morning, I peeled open my pasty eyes, regretting yet again that I was not awakened in the manner in which I still occasionally fantasize, and I told myself that today was the day that I was going to finally ask my lover to do it - to surprise me by sitting on my face as a wakeup call, although I knew that I would chicken out for the umpteenth time. In the sliver of light that somehow always managed to find its way past our curtains and room-darkening shades I watched Beth - my only true love - lying beside me and breathing lightly. Slowly the light sliver rose from her cheek and crept across the room, working its way up the wall until it stopped - as if it was a spotlight that finally found the star of the show - on Lucy Rae's framed companion piece, aptly entitled 'What Goes Around.'

Dated in 1993, the piece mirrored Lucy's still unsold amateurish work in every way except one. In the center of the body of water, only a partially submerged "Chevrolet" tailgate could be seen. Despite its simplicity, it is by far my favorite piece, and my only guilt is that the sketch continues to excite me in ways that I will probably never understand - decades later.

THE END